"Whatever THE DIRTY DOZEN did," screamed the ads, "they do it dirtier!" INGLORIOUS BASTARDS is more than just the inspiration for Quentin Tarantino's long-rumored next movie; this 1978 international smash remains perhaps t... more &raquohe biggest and most badass war movie in EuroCult history! Exploitation legends Fred 'The Hammer' Williamson and Bo (WALKING TALL, KILL BILL) Svenson star as the leaders of a gang of condemned criminals who escape from an Allied prison camp with a plan to blast their way to the Swiss border, only to find themselves 'volunteering' for a suicide mission deep inside Nazi occupied France. Academy Award(r) nominee Ian Bannen (FLIGHT OF THE PHOENIX, BRAVEHEART) co-stars in this explosive action epic from director Enzo Castellari (STREET LAW, THE BIG RACKET), now fully restored from original vault elements for the first time ever in America!EXTRAS:

Inglorious Bastards is a campy cult war flick, high on violence and insanity but a little low on common sense. You've got a bunch of reject U.S. soldiers facing court martial for various infractions, like flying the jetplane to visit their girlfriend a few thousand miles away.On the way to the military prison the convoy gets hit by some German artillery. This enables a few of the prisoners to escape. This ragtag group decides to head for neutral Switzerland while avoiding the American armies plus the Nazis.Now along the way there is all sorts of unrestrained madness. The highlight has got to be when they stumble across the female German soldiers skinny dippin in the lake. Allright! Just what you expect to see when running for your life through Europe. The soldiers masquerade as Nazis and get ready for some wet-n-wild fun.

Inglorious Bastards is an entertaining thrill ride that makes war seem like a party. The acting is decent. I recognized the cigar-smokin' Fred Williamson from Rodriquez's classic From Dusk til Dawn.I'm anxious to see QT's remake, supposedly due out in 2010. Somehow I doubt it resembles this film too much. But PLEEEEASE Quentin, keep the naked nazi chicks with the machine guns. I'm begging you!"

Great fun, not a brilliant movie

Duerksen | Oxford, OH USA | 02/08/2009

(3 out of 5 stars)

"it's hard to say what I think of this film. It's, in some ways, a brilliant war film that deserves recognition, while it can simultaneously make you shudder. it has a clever plot but then you have dialogue like "hey, those are our flyboys!" (impersonates an airplane while making a machine gun noise); there are some great effects and sets that are made good use of, but you can see the ropes pulling men from an explosion more clearly than you can see the strings in an Ed Wood film; you have naked german women firing machine guns at retreating American troops, and then you have the fact that this scene only lasts a couple of seconds (this is first time that an Italian movie has skimpped out in this category, let alone not completely over do it. It should have been at least a few minutes long, if not for the sex appeal then for the pure hilariouty of it.)It's like a movie that's so bad that it's good, but at the same time is actually good. And, like many films of this sort, it's main source of entertainment comes from it's cleverness that simply oozes from it's different aspects including plot and filmwork.The only major problem is that I had expected it to actually go on for about two hours or so until it ended. I would've given it four stars if it were only longer (especially certain *clear throat* scenes)."

Yes...I Give it Five Stars

William A. Peter | North Carolina, USA | 08/16/2008

(5 out of 5 stars)

"I watched this classic on HBO as a child and loved it. I recently bought it and watched it the first day I received it. It is the best "B" class WW II movie out there. The acting is pretty good and the story, while implausible, is pretty cool. All of the actors were perfect for their role. Other than Bo Svenson, Fred Williamson, and Ian Bannen, I have not seen any of the other actors since. It's too bad. I would like to see them in something else. By the way, if any of you out there who were in the service is wondering why Bo Svenson sounds authentic calling cadence in the movie, it is because he was in the Marines for six years.The movie is relatively short by today's standards so pause it if you go to the bathroom. Anyway, a great and fun movie. I loved it as a kid and do today."

This That Real Ish!

Brian Lueth | Chicago, IL United States | 09/11/2009

(4 out of 5 stars)

"From Spaghetti Westerns to Post-Nuke cinema, I'll be darned if there's a genre film Enzo G. Castellari can't handle! The Inglorious Bastards is just such an exceptional example and undoubtedly the kind of film that's able to rise above the classics it so heavily borrows from. Forget The Dirty Dozen, forget Cross of Iron, The Inglorious Bastards has one thing neither of those milestones in combat cinema have...Fred "The Hammer" Williamson.

What? You were expecting something deep and profound?

There's not one single thing I disliked about The Inglorious Bastards; the action is of the non-stop, two-fisted variety and the characters are incredibly likable, despite being a motley assemblage of thieves, murderers and cowards. The film tackles topics like race, true love and self-sacrifice in the face of impending doom; some emotionally charged topics there for a film many might consider exploitation.

The production design far exceeds anything one might expect going into this film and Giovanni Bergamini's cinematography was more than adequate. The score by famed Italian film composer Francesco De Masi was good though perhaps not as memorable as some of his other work in spaghetti cinema.

While The Inglorious Bastards may not have been the last film Williamson and Svenson worked on together, this is undoubtedly the best of the lot and an absolute must-see film for cult cinema fans. Severin has really gone all out on this fantastic release and the sound, transfer and extras really set this apart from the film's previous release incarnation. This has got to be one of the top cult cinema DVD releases of 2008! Forget Tarantino...IT'S ALL ABOUT THE CASTELLARI!"

"It's absurd! Why do we keep on wiz this hopeless war?" "Bet

Trevor Willsmer | London, England | 01/22/2009

(3 out of 5 stars)

"Thanks to the odd impressive matte shot and a skilful marshalling of its limited resources, Enzo Castellari's Inglorious Bastards doesn't look cheap even if the same extras keep on getting killed in every action scene, but despite Quentin Tarantino's slavish devotion it's more Garrison's Guerrillas than the Dirty Half-Dozen. Castellari's heroes are a standard issue group of American military prisoners: black marketer (Michael Pergolani), would-be mobster (Peter Hooten), coward (Jackie Basehart), proud black man who got tired of taking s*** (Fred Williamson), mildly sympathetic disillusioned German deserter to avoid offending the lucrative German market (Raimund Harmstorf) and the obligatory cocky but heroic one who got busted for using his fighter plane as a taxi for dates across the English Channel in his downtime (Bo Svenson). Naturally their plan to make a break for the border when they're waylaid en route to the stockade by some Nazi planes naturally ends up with them embarking on a mission vital to the success of the war (admittedly only after inadvertently killing some of their own side), but then this is a film that exists purely to do only what's expected of it rather than offer any unwelcome surprise. Sure, there's the odd spin on some of the old favorites, but there aren't nearly enough naked women with machine guns to truly lift it above the formulaic.

Dialogue isn't exactly sparkling - "All Americans are mongrels... and your women are whores!" - and half the cast are dubbed anyway (Ian Bannen's Scottish tones are replaced by an American actor and Hooten by what sounds like John Dall), but the film does its job even if it's more supporting feature than main event. Castellari is the best kind of hack, one with a good eye for framing and who knows how to shoot action (although the sight of one German soldier being lifted up, Peter Pan-style, on a visible wire in an explosion is worthy of one of the sight gags in Top Secret! It's a minor film and one it's best not to expect too much from, but there a lot worse exploitation films out there.

The three disc US Region 1 NTSC DVD comes with a decent array of extras, including Easter Egg alternate title sequences for a couple of the film's many video reissues as Deadly Mission and G.I. Bro (it's also known as Counterfeit Commandos, Hell's Heroes and Commando Bastards) a cheap-and-cheerful hour long making of, brief then and-now tour of the locations with Castellari and a CD (not included on the 2-disc set) of what little remains of the score - the composer recorded his son's school play over most of the masters! By far the most curious of the extras is an interview with Quentin Tarantino and Castellari, with the chin treating it as part confessional, part therapy, unburdening himself on the engaging director as if an unworthy disciple at the feet of a true master. "